Re: The Negative Effect Capitalism has had on White Europeans and their Culture

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Originally Posted by Bean Counter

Profit represents the realization of a perceived opportunity wherein a person seeks to offer a product. Without it, there is no growth in either quantity or quality of goods and services, as entrepreneurs cannot spend their time producing anything for no possible gain.

If a profit is realized, hasn't one party been short-changed?

Every transaction has a winner and a loser, the winner being the beneficiary of the other's labor. The winning "entrepreneur" receives un-earned income by means of the loser's lack of knowledge or preparedness. A particularly dirty semitic trick.

"It is the interest of every man to live at much at his ease as possible,"

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"The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition...is so powerful a principle, that it is alone,and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations,"

A driving force of people imagining themselves as being rich or comfortable:

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It is this deception which rouses and keeps in perpetual motion the industry of mankind."

Smith's theories atomize society and reinforce class division:

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"in what manner shall we account for the superior affluence and abundance commonly possessed by even the lowest and most despised member of Civilized Society with what the most respected and active savage can attain to."

Tying this sort of economic "progress" (division of labor, comparative advantage, etc.) to cultural and social "progress," --ie. better to be poor in a rich land than rich in a poor land--is disingenous at best. Again it tears at the fabric of community.

Smith did have some accurate criticism regarding capitalism and even businessmen themselves. Here:

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Another bad effect of commerce is that it sinks the courage of mankind, and tends to extinguish martial spirit. In all commercial countries the division of labor is infinite, and everyone's thoughts are employed about one part5icular thing....The minds of men are contracted, and rendered incapable of elevation. Education is despised, or at least neglected, and heroic spirit is utterly extinguished.

How perfectly convenient to jews wanting to bore from within.

Better to read Smith's contemporary, Adam Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society, 1768, which predicts tyranny and "the government of force" as the last stage of modern history. This volume did much to inspire the German Enlightenment.

If the apogee of self-interest was the health and strength of the racial community, this stuff might fly. But to have the end-point of society be the cleverest swindler ending up with everything and it's still not enough?

Re: The Negative Effect Capitalism has had on White Europeans and their Culture

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bean Counter

I'm uncertain what you mean when you speak of the myth of the south. There was no myth that I'm acquainted with, except the one about Yankees of that time having any semblance of honor.

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Originally Posted by George Peppard

I just meant to say that the South was never the ideal world of the yeoman farmer oft romanticized, and instead, consisted of the hard scrabble plots of Appalachia, the home of your ancestors, and many of mine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bean Counter

Before the War for Southern Independence, the South was the most prosperous region of the country, by far, primarily because of the cotton exports, and they contributed approximately 80 - 85% of the federal revenues

There is no doubt that you speak the truth, though that hard scrabble existence of subsistence Appalachian farming was a concurrent reality.

Dr. Michael Hill speaks a message that includes the grander ideals and freedoms enjoyed by the yeoman farmer, as he should, and as we all should emphasize.

I use myth only in the philosophical sense, as this is the philosophy forum.

Re: The Negative Effect Capitalism has had on White Europeans and their Culture

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bean Counter

I'm uncertain what you mean when you speak of the myth of the south. There was no myth that I'm acquainted with, except the one about Yankees of that time having any semblance of honor.

Before the War for Southern Independence, the South was the most prosperous region of the country, by far, primarily because of the cotton exports, and they contributed approximately 80 - 85% of the federal revenues, which is the REAL reason Lincoln couldn't afford to let the South exercise its rights under the Constitution. North against South: The American Iliad, 1848-1877 by Ludwell H. Johnson does the best job of describing events as they actually were that I have read.

Good post. Damn Yankee invaders are when the country starting going to crap.

Re: The Negative Effect Capitalism has had on White Europeans and their Culture

Quote:

Originally Posted by George Peppard

I just meant to say that the South was never the ideal world of the yeoman farmer oft romanticized, and instead, consisted of the hard scrabble plots of Appalachia, the home of your ancestors, and many of mine.

The idea that you speak of is seen in "Brady's Civil war photos" depicting the bloody horror of the conflict brought to the South as she struggled for freedom, and independence.

The south was predominately independent and agrarian.

The south didn't struggle for freedom. It fought an invading horde much akin to the Huns the Romans fought whose sole purpose was plunder and degradation. I have zero allegiance to the U.S. or it's constitution. My ancestors were forced against their will back into the union. A union which has now shown the fruits of it's conquest. I am an unreconstructed southerner and shall remain so until death.

I hold no hatred towards northerners today who know little about the conflict other than what the fairy tale history books teach them.

Re: The Negative Effect Capitalism has had on White Europeans and their Culture

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kufenstecher

If a profit is realized, hasn't one party been short-changed?

Every transaction has a winner and a loser, the winner being the beneficiary of the other's labor. The winning "entrepreneur" receives un-earned income by means of the loser's lack of knowledge or preparedness. A particularly dirty semitic trick.

Who would want to rip-off their brothers and sisters?

Operating on the belief this or these questions are sincere I just couldn't help myself from inserting myself. Please pardon the intursion Bean.

Do you get paid for working? If so, doesn't that mean you profited from that work? Does that mean you "short changed" your employer? Or does that mean you 'ripped-off' one of your brothers or sisters? Did your brother or sister rip you off for you labor?

If you believe any of the above find another job or better yet start you own business, work for free, and maybe that will ease you overworked, ill informed, misplaced conscience and/or sense of guilt.

Truthfully, in an arms legnth transaction BOTH parties win or profit. If an involved party believes the other to be offering to little in payment or demanding too much for the item THEN DON'T BUY OR SELL THE DAMN THING. Come on folks, it just isn't that difficult. I ain't no rocket scientist and this ain't rocket science.

Re: The Negative Effect Capitalism has had on White Europeans and their Culture

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kufenstecher

...If a profit is realized, hasn't one party been short-changed?...

I'm going to answer you as though you are sincere and not just kidding, or trying to say something utterly asinine so as to get a reaction, let's say.

Your concept of profit is cockeyed. Now answer me honestly with this next set of questions please. If you are the owner of a store, wherein you sell shirts, say, that cost you $10, and you sell that shirt to me for $12, you have made a profit of $2. In order to make it worthwhile, in your judgment, to be in the shirt selling business, you've decided that you will only accept $12 for the price of the shirt, to gain the profit you desire, or you might as well do something else more profitable, maybe go get a job, or sell something else, or whatever. I decide that the shirt is worth $12 to me and that I would rather have the shirt than the $12 I own. I therefore trade my wealth or stored work, represented by the $12, for your shirt.

Please explain to me how I lost? How was I shortchanged and how? Please also explain to me how you would operate your store without making a profit? With what funds would you buy for yourself whatever it is you are hoping to buy with your excesses represented by the 'profits"? Your home, food, gifts for your mistress, crack, whatever? Please also explain to me how selling something at a profit is a "semitic" trick? Please explain how I have been "ripped" off?

__________________

****** ******Money will buy a fine dog, but only kindness will make him wag his tail.

Re: The Negative Effect Capitalism has had on White Europeans and their Culture

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Originally Posted by elysium

John Holloway, author of "How To Change The World Without Taking Power" is a Marxist-oriented sociologist, presenting no new insights as to the woes of Capitalism, but seems to be making an attempt at (anti-marxian) postmodern theory. "

...
With the interruption, surplus value is created.

A reference is made to Marx' "Theory of Surplus Value" but without the implicit hypothesis that capital accumulation should lead to class warfare, interesting.

The vector that the article makes from the traditional Marxian theory is the only useful point to be found, IMHO. Marx theory was far too simple to offer any real advances in the area of economics, and some would see it as the work of income redistribution simpletons.

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Originally Posted by elysium

It becomes a product (commodity) that can be sold. On the base of this objectification capital starts to exist. The real base of production remains work and with this basically capitalism is dependent on work and not the other way round."

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Originally Posted by elysium

"To understand the nature of capitalist objectification, Holloway sees fetishism as the central explanation. Marx used the term fetishism to “describe the rupture of doing”

Why wouldn't we just make the observation that capital is found combined into increasingly complex forms and contrivances that are inimicable to the interests of the greater society?

We can do this without political theories of class relationships, but simply from the view that capitalism is distorted when contrivances of its form disrupt the stability of the markets, and thereby disrupt social order. One case in point: credit derivatives, ban 'em.

Modern day capital asset pricing models have proven ineffective as a social solution as they only describe only what ought to occur, and under conditions of risk.